On Page Optimization Guidelines

On page optimization is every bit as important as link building. Many people will disagree however to rank for the really hard terms you will need to have good optimisation or no matter how many links you get you simply will not rank. In this section we will give you some of the most important on page optimization guidelines to help you ensure that you can get the best possible start for your web page in the serps.

There are a lot of antiquated methods that people speak about with regards to page optimisation. In this section here we will cover what is relevant now and what will likely be relevant for the future.

The official line from Google is that you should not try to optimise page but to provide the quality content. While this in theory is great it simply does not work like that. You still have two “push” the page in the right direction for Google to understand the favoured terms. There are a few elements which are open to interpretation however we will be teaching you here what we do and what we know works.

As you probably already know by now WordPress is our favoured content management system for building websites. The reason for this is that it is extremely flexible and there are many “plugins” which are designed to make our lives easier. Not only as affiliate marketers but also for SEO in general.

How To Perfectly Optimize A Page

Before you start building your website you would already completed your keyword research. By the end of your keyword research you can plan out your initial site layout. Normally a page can target around three or four decent keywords however the page should have one main target keyword which is more than likely the one that will bring you the most quantified traffic.

If for instance we were targeting the keyword “make money online” then we would follow the following guidelines.

Your main target keyword should be mentioned in the following:

Page Url : For example

http://www.zontseo.com/make-money-online

In The Page Title: For Example:

Winning Tips To Make Money Online From Rudi

In the meta description: For Example:

You can Make Money Online by following Rudis step by step guide to a successful career online all from the comfort of your own home.

If you do a quick search on Google.com for the phrase “make money online” then you will get something similar to the page that is shown below.

As you can see all bar 1 have Make Money Online in their titles and also the meta description. The last page shown has the phrase “on the internet” which Google will understand as a synonym for “online”. While this is not the ideal way, if you do have an authoritative domain then you will find in this day and age you will rank for these alternative terms.

Keyword Density Following Our On Page Optimization Guidelines

In 2014 keyword density is nowhere near as important as it was maybe 12 months ago. In this day and age Google wants you to provide quality information for the readers of your web page. The idea is that your keyword will probably appear naturally if it is on topic.One thing that Google will pick up on is if you try and unnaturally force keyword density into an article. A keyword density of around 1.5 to 2% will probably occur naturally anyway. However after a little testing I’ve definitely seen that keyword density over 5% will degrade your ranking efforts. You will be much better to try and make the content on the web page interesting to read, informative and share worthy. Social media has been a bit of a buzz word over the last year couple of years and if you are not properly utilising it then you’re behind the game.

In short, aim for around 1-2% keyword density but don’t stress about it if it is slightly under. Just try and get the keywords in the content somewhere. In 2014 what Google does not like is the thin content. This is where there is not enough content to offer the readers any particular benefit. Anything under 300 words is pretty pointless. I will always aim and trying get your content on a page to be at least 500 words and the more the better. In short, try and get your targeted keywords to appear naturally and concentrate on producing high end content. In the affiliate marketing world, if you are trying to promote a product the more you can say about it the better.

Outbound Links

Don’t ever be afraid to link out to other authority sites in your market. Obviously don’t link out to another page that you are trying to rank for the same keyword however something “on topic” and from a respected website is ideal. You do not have to use your exact match keyword to link out however some people believe it does have a positive effect on your own page (I am as yet undecided).

Correct Use Of H Tags

H Tags or rather heading tags are still very important for Google to determine the relevancy of your page to your targeted keywords.The general consensus is that there should only ever be one H1 tag on anyone page and this should certainly try and contain your main target keyword.

You can use H2, H3 and even H4 for tags as subheadings within your page. However, there are a few rules that you should try and stick to.

The first is that the H numbers should always run consecutively for instance
H1
H2
H3

Never
H2
H1
H3

You are also able to have more than one kind of H tag (H1 excluded) however again the number still need to run consecutively.

So you can have

H1
H2
H2
H2
H3
H3

If you can try and get relevant headings within the tags and even try and get one of your pages target keywords within them as well. Many people are saying the H tags are less important now than they have been previously however, it is still good practice to have them well maintained and placed.

Correct Use Of The <Strong> Tag

Correct use of the <strong> tag (more commonly known as bold) Is something that is incorrectly used by many. You should try and “strong” relevant terms in your article to provide emphasis on those words. So using views on an earlier if we were trying to optimise for “make money online” then I might do the following…

There are lots of different ways to make money online by either selling services or affiliate marketing which is selling other people’s products. The ZontSEO affiliate marketing section you will find is one of the best available anywhere that will show you how to do just that….for free.

The problem is many people go overboard with bolding words in which case it just looks like an over optimized page. Once maybe twice in a longer article is more than enough to emphasise the point.

Plugins To Make Your Life Easier

If you decide that you are going to be using WordPress on your website then the use of plug-ins can make your life so much easier. My recommendation is to use the “Yoast SEO plugin” which is free of charge and constantly updated. When you enter all of your details and click the advanced tab on your page you will see a screen like below which will give you an overview of how the on-page SEO is for you page.

Again, don’t take everything that is advised on this plug-in as absolute gospel but is a very very good guideline to optimising a webpage. Best thing you can do in short is make sure the content is gripping and share worthy. Hopefully you found these on page optimization guidelines useful and of course if you have any questions then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us either on the forum or through our support system.

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